


Beside you

by Yamiyoru



Series: I got you, Cochise. [2]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Gore, Josh is back as human, M/M, Redemption, That's how I roll - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-11 10:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5623429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yamiyoru/pseuds/Yamiyoru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh woke up in the hospital as a human again and realised how close he was to losing his best friend again. Time to make things right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am making Josh come back as human as I think Chris has enough shit as it is. He had to take Josh's wrath when he was never involved in the prank and then, he loses his best friend. Like how fucked up is that.

It hurts……Stop!

Everything fucking hurt like it was burning. Each breath Josh took into his lungs was as good as inhaling hot ashes and each step, each movement, he felt a stabbing pain tearing through his skin. Why did it hurt so much when all he wanted was to leave the mountain and bring Chris to a hospital? Was this the spirits' doing? To keep them trapped here?

In a corner of his mind, Josh could feel the spirits' pull and hear their hysterics laughter, mocking him for trying to leave them, for his effort to save his friend. 

‘There's no escape.’

‘Damn it! Fucking leave us alone!’

‘HAHAHAHA!’

He needed to get away but all he saw was vague shapes painted in red and his eyes stung like they were rolling in acid. His other senses had also long given up on him. There was no telling if he was running up or down hill. Being this blind, it was a miracle he did not run into any trees or down a cliff. He had been running for what seemed like an hour and hopes seemed bleaker by the minute. Even so, Josh told himself he must continue for Chris and ignored the sensation of his friend’s body getting colder and stiffer each time he checked. The pain was a good distraction from the thought that his friend had long-

_NO! Don’t you dare!_

Chris would be alright. His Cochise was not weak like him. He always has been stronger.

‘Hang in there for me, bro.’ Josh turned his head slightly to the dead weight on his back and begged he was wrong. ‘Please…’ 

Chris came up to see him, not for the spirits to take him so Josh absolutely would not allow the spirits to take his bro away. Josh Washington may not deserve a second chance and should be left in the mountain to rot but not Chris, who deserves a choice. His best friend, who valued their friendship so much that he could risk his life to try communicating with a monster, was now dying for him. For a friend like this, the least he could do was try too. 

If trying failed, then fuck it and try harder, his best bud was dying here! 

He should have tried harder the whole damn entire time but no, the old Josh W. was a weakling, who only knew to run and push away his friend’s concern. His guilt over his sisters' disappearance, the wrath at all his ‘friends’, his distrust towards everyone, which included Chris, had led to today. Was Chris going to pay for his mistake? 

If he had told Chris his anger and disappointment at their friends' prank that caused his sisters' demise, Chris would have found a way to convince him to not do what he did and they would not even be here in the first place. 

If he had given Chris a way into his guilt and frustrations back then, he might have taken his siblings’ death better and not hallucinate about them haunting or blaming him for their bitter end. 

However, he did not. Josh fucking Washington allowed himself be consumed by maddening rage, to involve his one true friend in a revenge cocktail when the latter was never part of the prank. How he wished Chris would sit up now and tell him he was a fucked up shit because he definitely deserves every word of it. 

'That's not true.' 

Turning towards the voice, Josh was surprised it was Chris, who was supposedly on his back was mysteriously standing before him, and then, with a ‘I’m serious, Josh’ face, the blondie repeated his words. ‘It’s not true. Josh, I have never really been angry enough. Come on, Bro. Some trust here, please? I’m sorry I let you down when I’m supposed to be your best friend but you have to trust me.’

Josh wanted to tell Chris not to apologize because Josh was the one who let him down, not Chris but what came out was, ‘If you are standing in front of me, then?’ Then what was on his back now? He could still feel the weight slumped over him. Afraid of what he was carrying, Josh turned back carefully and slowly and it was Beth grinning at him. Taken by surprise, he shook Beth off like a spider. He must be hallucinating again, and not _again_ with a great deal of exasperation. 

'Not now, Beth.’ 

Beth pouted at him and voiced her annoyance, ‘why? You gave me piggybacks all the time?’

‘Chris’s hurt.’ Josh gestured to the sickly looking Chris but in his place, Hannah materialised. 

‘Not you too. Please, Hannah. Chris didn't take part in the prank.'

‘I know. Neither did Sam. It’s sad my brother has better taste in men than me.’

‘Way to rub it in, naïve sister. I didn’t even get a chance to meet one.’ 

‘I don’t-‘ 

‘Don’t give us that, Josh’ said the twins in unison, shutting Josh up and continued creepily, ‘just man up and tell Chris.’ 

Pointing a finger in Josh’s face, Hannah warned him, ‘and no friends with benefits-’

‘-shit.’ Contributed by Beth. ‘He deserves more. I raised you better than this.’ His favourite little sister gestured to all of him in an exaggerated manner. One he knew so well and missed so badly. He wanted it all back.

‘Yes. Or we’ll-‘ And they were doing it again. Twins…

‘-come back and kick your ass if you make Chris cry a second time.’ 

‘Since when were you three so chummy?’ 

‘Jealous? Well, since you made him cry?’

‘I have never made him cr-‘

‘Josh, we did and I want to say sorry to him. We three owe him a thank you as well. And Sam too.’

‘Big Brother, will you do that for us?’

‘Wait. Where’re you going?’ Josh reached out to the twins as they turned their backs, hands interlocked and walked away. 

With the same brilliant smile the older twin always gave everyone and the mischievous grin Beth threw at him after a prank, they both waved and told him, ‘wrong direction, big bro. Chris’s behind you.’ 

And he turned to a flash of white light. The woods were gone and he opened his eyes to a very white ceiling and his sisters’ parting words still echoing clearly.

_We just want to see you one last time. Thank you, Josh._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to release Beth and Hannah's souls. It's too sad to have these two still in the mountains, they deserve nirvana.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh waking up and sees Chris in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn. I just love putting my favourite character in hospital. Rheumatic heart disease was what I had in mind but I am using heart condition loosely since I’m unsure which would give the conditions I want.

‘You awake, me bucko?’ 

His head was still swarming and dizzy from the drugs but he tried to make his sight focus on the face looming over him. Only one person he knew calls him that. 

_Sam?_

He tried to speak but his jaws were locked. The darkness was pushing as he forced a sound, any sound to come out. ‘Uh-‘

_Where’s…Chris…_

A grunt, a fading question, and Josh was reclaimed by sleep before he could figure out where his limbs were.

The next time he woke up, he was able to see the blondie in high definition and half a brain to figure out he was lying right on a hospital bed. If the drip above him was not obvious enough, nothing else would be. He got out of a sanatorium to end up in an asylum would just be terrible and pointless. 

‘Shh..easy there, boy. Chris will kill me if you break another leg.’ He was not aware he was trying to sit up until Sam’s hands were on him, hushing and pressing him back onto the bed. His groggy mind took a whole minute to register ‘Chris’ existed somewhere in her words and Chris was still alive. 

‘.kis..’

_Where is he? I need to see Chris._

With his mind full of worries to make sure Chris was alright, he made his heavily bandaged limbs to work. He would reply to the complaints of his wounds later. Perhaps he still retained the strength of a Wendigo, Sam struggled to have Josh laid back onto bed. In no time, Josh already had one leg swung over the bed. It was a mere 10 cm for his foot to touch the cold hospital floor, another 5 seconds to watching Josh dropped onto the ground like a rag doll, 2 more seconds for stitches to open that had Sam admit defeat at the daftness of another friend.

‘All right! Just calm down!’ 

Not wanting any other factors to prolong the hospital stay, Sam relented and sneaked his ass away on a wheelchair to see Chris. In the reflection of the closed lift doors, Josh took in the full extent of his injuries. He was so fully wrapped up like a mummy, covering almost every part of his skin, it would make a pharaoh coroner proud. The stiff bandages around his head were making it difficult for him to speak although he suspected a second problem.

Opening to the ground floor, Sam pushed him down the corridor, into another building, into another lift, out and Josh regretted his decision. This was the intensive care unit ward. 

_Is he dying? Of course, he is, Moron! You think doctors put people in ICU for fun?_

Sensing Josh’s distress and panic, San slowed and placed her hand on Josh’s shoulder, and gave him a small squeeze to feel the pressure and not hurt. They stopped before a glass panel and inside, on another hospital bed, it was Chris. The machinery, wires and tubes were obstructing Chris’s face from him but he would recognize that man anywhere. Now that he got his human vision back, he could see how his best bud looks after 2 years, something he could not on the mountain. Shredding all the layering Chris used to wear to hide his figure, his best friend was even thinner than he last remembered. 

_What happened? Why is he in ICU? Did he accidentally torn a chunk of meat off Chris?_

There were so many things he wanted to ask. His mind was clear enough to process a thousand of questions but the damn bandages were preventing it. Behind him, Sam was peering in with an equal amount of discomfort. In the same sorrowful tone he heard on the day his sisters went missing, Sam apologized. ‘I’m sorry, Josh.’

_I’m sorry? What’s that supposed to mean? ‘I’m sorry you have to see this?’ or ‘I’m sorry, man. It’s hopeless.’? I don’t get it._

As if understanding Josh’s wordless questions, Sam addressed Josh’s worries with all she knew.

‘It’s his heart condition. The doctor said he has it since young, which explains why he’s always skipping out on gym. Did you know?’ 

He moved his mummified head a little side to side to make it look like a ‘no’. This is the first time he was hearing it as well. He had known Chris since they were pup but this was news to him. He always thought it was just Chris’s dominant clumsy genes letting him get away from physical classes and not an actual condition bad enough to require his best friend to sit out. Why did Chris choose to keep it from him?

The pause and huge sigh from Sam agreed with him. ‘He didn’t tell us either. Not even Ashley. Maybe he didn’t want us to worry. You know him, friendship above the rest.’ 

_Yeah, enough to dine and camp out with a monster._

‘Which is why losing you really hit him hard. He didn’t want to give up. He kept going back to find you and the disappointment each trip hurts him. It’s making him fall apart. He hardly sleeps or eats. It’s so painful to watch him do that to himself when it’s not even his fault. And all because of a stupid prank?’

_Stupid pranks indeed._

‘I’m sorry, Josh. I should have tried harder to stop the rest and Hannah or Beth wouldn’t have run out. Some best friend I am.’

_Stop apologizing, Sam. Hannah doesn’t blame you. Neither did Beth._

Josh wished he could lift his arm to squeeze Sam’s hands to tell her it was not her fault. As much as he wanted to blame the rest but truly, it was no one’s fault. Hannah should not have run out in the first place.

‘Whenever I saw his eye bags and him losing weight, I wanted to grab his shoulder and shake him really hard. It’s so unfair he had to suffer all that anger and disappointment and later the guilt of ‘you’.’ 

Josh cringed at that implication.

‘Chris blamed himself for leaving you in the cabin and then not trying to find you when you were lost in the mines. Josh, he was injured going up to get you back from the cabin.’

_I didn’t know._

‘Chris insisted to go back up, even after you attacked the search troops. From their description, we knew you had changed and it was a matter of time before you did completely but he refused to abandon you. I didn’t know how to help you or him.’

_I know you tried._

‘And then, one day he came down with Beth’s head in a box and stopped going up ever since. He was apologizing and crying so hard that he let you down as he returned Beth to your parents.’

_I’m sorry I made you cried, Chris._

‘He stopped coming to school as well. Only appearing to hand in assignments and left immediately. He bolted himself up in his room and doesn’t reply to our messages. Then, out of the blue, like a month ago, he called me and said he wanted to talk. That’s when I know about his condition.’

Sam paused and Josh wondered if Sam was biting her lips, finding the courage to continue. ‘Apparently, it deteriorated enough to require surgery with only 50% percent success and he told me if he’s gonna die, he wants to die after he said goodbye to you. And he did. I was worried sick because there’re no receptions up there and I couldn’t follow him. He needed to do it alone.’

Another pause. Was she rubbing her eyes? It must be hard to find out another friend would be following the same journey as her best friend and then, to let him go up alone. It was like abandoning another friend all over again. 

_That’s why he came up to the mountain. To say bye to me when I don’t even get a word he said._

‘Then, on the day he’s supposed to come down and tell he was fine. I got a message from Beth’s number with just two words; Help them. I initially thought it was a prank but I remembered Chris on the mountain so I drove. This sounded a hella crazy and if I didn’t see all that shit two years ago, I wouldn’t believe my eyes. In the middle of the road, you stumbled out of nowhere. And oh man, you looked like one of your dad’s movies with deep cuts, bleeding all over but still carrying Chris. If I didn’t see Chris and if it wasn’t me, someone would have just run you over than risk a heart attack.’

_That’s real nice, bucko. I love you too._

‘Josh, do you think it really was Beth? She still trusts me after all that? When I should have stopped them harder and Hannah, Beth wouldn’t…’ He could hear Sam’s tightened grip, the friction from squeezing the wheelchair handles. In his dream, he remembered Hannah telling him they owe the two an apology and a big hug. 

_They know, Sam. And they trust you._

They know how unjustified it was for these two. Sam had released Hannah’s soul while Chris had brought Beth back to his parents. It was only fair for these two to know the twins appreciated their efforts. Although he needed Chris to wake up first. 

_You two, don’t let Chris go over to your world yet._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some website said heart condition can also be associated with a lower body temperature and thus, (my theory) maybe Chris's need to layer more clothes than others although lowering temperature is also a cardiac arrest treatment.


End file.
